Saint-Émilion Underground Tour

Saint-Émilion Underground Tour

The monks who built this church started from the top. They carved downward through the limestone plateau, hollowing 15,000 cubic metres of rock by hand, leaving the columns and vaulted ceiling as part of the original living stone. The result is the largest monolithic church in Europe: 38 metres long, 20 metres high, entirely underground, built upside down over 200 years. A fugitive Breton monk named Émilion carved his own bed, table and chair into the rock in the 8th century — still touchable today. In September, 140 Jurats in red ermine robes climb the 13th-century King's Tower to announce the harvest, as they have since 1199 when King John — the same man who signed the Magna Carta — put his seal on their charter.